


Through the Ghost

by carzla



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 17:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7767637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carzla/pseuds/carzla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the day, it had been simple. All it had taken for his life to reach its inexorable conclusion was one little bullet. It was a surprisingly clean way to go, all things considered, and Tony was ready (more than ready) to embrace it. To just, finally, let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> So, after _Captain America: Civil War_ , I had thought that I'd have lots of inspiration for fic seeing as angsty fic is basically the bread-and-butter of my writing. This is not to say that I _didn't_ have inspiration, but I got so engrossed in all the beautifully done post-CW fic that it took a good long while before my own inspiration decided to manifest itself to reflect my own post-CW feels. This is that fic.
> 
> This is basically a Tony-centric fic, and the Steve/Tony tag is probably a bit more one-sided than actually pre-slashy. But there's a reason for the tags being the way it is.

In the end, it all boiled down to a bullet.

One little bullet.

* * *

 

After it all, after the letter and the phone, and putting numerous people – including, but not limited to, one Thaddeus Ross – on hold, there really was no running from accountability. Not that Tony had been planning to run.

He still stood by the Accords. But he also knew that it needed a lot of working on. The version that he’d signed had emphatically _not_ included imprisonment without trial. But even disregarding that little tidbit, he knew – had always known – that there was more to be done to get it as close to perfect as reality ever could. He had wanted the rest of the team on board, not only because he felt it was the right thing to do, but also because it would make pushing for amendments that much easier. If another voice was added, and who was he kidding, he only meant _one_ voice in particular, Tony was certain that they could've shaped the Accords into something less restrictive and yet still provided a system of accountability that would satisfy the rest of the world.

He also knew, as the debacle with Ultron had proven, that he couldn’t be allowed to run unchecked on his own, good intentions or not. Maybe _especially_ if he had good intentions. The Accords were never meant to be a one-man show. He had always wanted to have the others with him, to give him suggestions he hadn’t thought of, had overlooked, to point out to him when something was going too far…

Tony Stark had always needed someone to be his counterpoint, to balance his genius and tendencies to let it run wild with no regard to common sensibilities. He’d believed that Steve could be the one to do that in the Avengers.

He just hadn’t thought that it would backfire so spectacularly. Yes, they were probably not the best at communication, but he hadn’t expected practically none at all.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty and already, Tony could see where he could’ve handled things better.

He shouldn’t have kept Wanda under house arrest without at least explaining his rationale, even though he had been busy with simultaneously trying to put out the fire that was Steve and Sam’s chase through the streets of Bucharest after Barnes. (But he’d tried his best to handle that mess. But by god, trying wasn’t enough, was _never enough_ when it came to him.)

He _really_ shouldn’t have brought Peter to Germany (just look at how that had turned out), because that wasn't a move that could be, in any reasonable way, construed to be looking out for the kid when that had been the main reason he had kept an eye on Peter in the first place.

Most of all, he really should’ve known better than to expect that Steve wouldn’t push back if Tony pushed first. He could’ve tried harder to explain his reasons for supporting the Accords, but looking back, Tony had the feeling that once Barnes had been pulled into the picture, no matter what he could’ve tried to do, all bets would’ve been well and truly off.

But what was done was done, there was no use crying over spilt milk and all that jazz. Besides, Tony was very good at surviving. Even if it was only so that he could fix the things he had broken. This didn’t seem like something he could fix easily, but he would try.

(Sometimes, it seemed like that was all he did. To try to do better, to try to fix one problem… Only to make another worse.

The only thing Tony Stark had never been able to fix was himself.)

After everything, he split his time between the Accords (first kicking Ross out and then beginning the long arduous journey towards amending them and getting the said amendments passed), building different versions of the exoskeletons for Rhodey to try, sending nifty gadgets and gear to Peter (to keep him safe, because it was the best he could do if he couldn’t dissuade Peter from his choices and to make up for dragging him to Germany), and keeping R&D at Stark Industries busy… and doing his level best to _not_ think about why he still had an old flip phone and a handwritten letter tucked away in one of his heavy-duty safes even though just knowing that they existed made him both bitterly angry and uncontrollably sad at the same time. Sleep became even more of a rare commodity, and what little he got was mired in nightmares anyway.

Yinsen. Obie. Dad. Mom.

Steve Rogers bringing down the shield on the arc reactor and killing Tony anyway.

Because he may have lived for more years without the reactor in his chest, the years that he bore the reactor, however, were some of the most important and meaningful years of his life.

Most times, it was really better not to sleep. But he was getting on in his years, and it was harder to not give in to exhaustion – however reluctantly – after the third night in a row of working without sleep. It wasn’t as if sleep helped any, contrary to what Rhodey insisted. Most days, if he slept, he woke up feeling utterly unrested at best. Bone-deep weariness was a thing that he was beginning to consider as part of his new baseline normal. But he hadn’t mentioned any of it to Rhodey, not wanting to burden his best friend with his never-ending stream of issues. Rhodey had spent all the years he’d been friends with Tony Stark helping Tony deal with his issues, now, it was Tony’s turn to return the favor even if it would be unlikely that he’d do as good a job as Rhodey had done for him.

He owed it to Rhodey, and he gave it all he had in the only ways he knew how. But God. He was just _so tired_.

There were times he wished that he was still together with Pepper. At least he would’ve someone to confide to if he decided to consider that as an option. Even if he didn’t, he knew that Pepper would support him. But they weren’t together, and though they were still friends, things were still just on this side of uncomfortably awkward that Tony didn’t feel like he could, in good conscience, pour his heart out to her. It wasn’t fair to her to do that. They’d been on a break, and then decided on an amicable parting, precisely because she couldn’t handle having to worry about whether he was going to return home to her alive on top of juggling SI, the business world in general, and Tony’s many and varied neuroses on a good day. Tony couldn’t deny that a part of him had felt freer afterwards, even if he mourned losing his best romantic relationship to date.

And if a part of him had then started to take it as permission to hang out at the Avengers facility and being around a certain Captain a little ( _a lot_ ) more afterwards, well…

It really hadn’t amounted to anything in the end, had it?

Tony tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the possibilities that had been burnt to the ground, into nothing more than ashes, before they had even had the opportunity to see the light of day.

He’d grown up in the long shadow of Captain America, as if Steve Rogers was somehow part of the Stark family. Captain America had, in the very beginning, been a childhood hero, an almost legendary figure whom a young Tony Stark had adored with the wholeness and earnestness found in all children. But eventually, perhaps inevitably, that adoration had turned into resentment, and Steve Rogers became an unwelcome ghost that haunted the Starks and couldn’t be exorcised. It had taken his parents’ deaths before Tony could almost permanently shove Captain America into a box and lock him away in the furthest reaches of his mind to be lost to time and fickle memory.

But it didn’t stay that way. Perhaps it never could’ve, not with how his life had been inexorably linked to Captain America since before he was born.

Their first meeting had been fraught with tension, borne of the situation in which they found themselves in (chasing after a mad alien who could be a god) as well as on Tony’s own part. He was meeting the man he had, in childish innocence, loved and then resented and then, finally, had grown indifferent… Only to be hit with the realization, moments before they had actually come face-to-face with each other, that he had never been (could never be) indifferent to Steve Rogers.

Things had, somewhat predictably, gone to shit faster than light speed, and while he should’ve expected it, the disappointment that filled him when Steve Rogers didn’t live up to expectations still took him by surprise. Expectations he was startled to find that he still had, seeing as they had been what a five-year-old Tony Stark had thought Captain America would be like.

That Captain America would see him, and just _know_ him, and _like_ him.

Of course, Tony had then come to learn that Steve Rogers was only human and that his childhood beliefs were unrealistic, but then, despite them not being particularly close after New York, they had gained an understanding of each other and actually respected each other. Then, as time passed, there was a definite and palpable rapport building between them, the instantaneous harmony that they’d exhibited in combat from the get-go – and had never lost – seemed to be finally translating into other areas of their relationship.

It was probably his own fault that he’d let himself start to hope.

It was simple, truly. There was probably no simpler equation in existence. For Steve, the singular most important person in his life was James Barnes. Everything and everyone else faded away into a distant second at best. A part of Tony must have known this, but in true Tony-fashion, he had let himself be willingly blinded to the fact.

Why else had he told Steve that Barnes would be given the best psychiatric help the world could offer if Steve would just sign the Accords and make it all an official, sanctioned mission, and not have it appear to be just one enhanced individual trampling all over government forces and laws because it was his life’s mission to save his best friend?

Somehow, he must have still assumed that he’d mattered enough to Steve for Steve to trust him with Steve’s best friend and the harsh truths that came with it. To trust Tony enough to tell Tony exactly how his parents had died, to tell him who had murdered them.

But no, of course not. Of course it would be their enemy who’d revealed it. Zemo had played them all spectacularly. Even if the man would never see the outside of a jail cell for the rest of his life, the man had won. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, and Tony could no longer find the strength, the sheer obstinacy in him to prove Zemo wrong.

He couldn’t fix the Avengers, couldn’t fix how they’d scattered across the globe in many broken pieces, the universe really, if he was going to count Thor. (It had been a bitter pill to swallow, once understanding had hit him one night, after a long day spent poring over the minutiae written in the Accords.) But truly, it wasn’t something Tony Stark could do as a solo effort, no matter the vastness of his monetary and technological resources. At this point, he just didn’t have enough heart left to fix relationships, and as he was comprehending all over again, a meaningful relationship went both ways. So with the Avengers? Well, there weren’t many of them left who would even want to hear him out, even if he did try to reach out again.

But he could try to manage the Accords, because the Accords were no longer just about the Avengers, and it was one of the only ways he could protect people – enhanced or otherwise – that was left to him that didn’t require leaving his back open to be knifed. (If it could potentially lead to having the currently on-the-run Avengers having a chance to be granted amnesty or even an opportunity to defend themselves and their actions, it was pure coincidence.) So that was what he did. Meeting up with lawyers and representatives to try to fix the parts that needed fixing, and desperately hoping and praying that he wouldn’t screw up further. It had been a long, arduous journey to get to this point, but it was finally time to present the amended Accords to the United Nations for them to ratify.

This time, the meeting would take place in the main New York headquarters of the UN, and in light of the last time the UN had gathered with regards to the Accords, security was heightened.

It still wasn’t enough.

(Maybe it would’ve made a bit of difference if he had agreed to let Vision accompany him. But he hadn’t wanted to subject Vision to the scrutiny and spectacle that followed Tony Stark around like an unshakeable shroud.)

When the bullet hit, it went through his chest, through a lung… through his heart. A part of him railed against the unfairness of it all. He had walked away from Afghanistan, he had survived going through a portal into space, he had made the disaster that was Ultron and still lived another day… and it was to be something as, comparatively, insignificant as a sniper shot that would end Tony Stark, end Iron Man…

But a larger part of him, he could concede, breathed a sigh of relief.

Because there was a possibility he had considered (many, _many_ times), but had never acted upon. That perhaps the true reason for why the world was getting continually screwed over, in worse and worse ways, was because Tony Stark tried to do too much. The world had done decently enough before Iron Man existed, it certainly couldn’t do _worse_ if he were gone. Besides, the world had additional protectors now, unlike eight years ago, when he’d first become Iron Man.

That assurance was a form of peace in itself, and it made deciding to let go easier.

He had never been the sort to choose the path of least resistance, but maybe it was time.

So he didn’t fight it. Not that it would’ve been an easy task to fight for survival considering that the bullet had pierced through his already damaged heart.

It would be nice, he thought hazily. To finally rest.

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

“Do you think we got him safely through?”

“Of course, _I_ did. I’m the best sorcerer there is.”

…that was strange. If this was the afterlife, which he hadn’t believed existed even after knowing that aliens that could be Norse gods were an actual thing, then he was cheated of it being peaceful. This did _not_ sound peaceful. Was there a feedback option?

Then again, this could actually be hell. It would make sense.

“Amora would take offense to that.”

This voice sounded strangely familiar.

“She's only good for bewitching people to her whims, as you no doubt know, since you’re her favorite target,” the other voiced scoffed. It was also starting to sound somewhat familiar, what with the British-like accent. “It’s hardly what you needed for this.”

“Chill-”

He got the distinct impression, despite not having visuals at the moment, that British Voice just glared at the other person. The temperature also seemed to actually drop a few degrees.

“Okay, okay. Thank you for your help, O’Great One.”

British Voice sniffed haughtily, but sounded like he acquiesced upon hearing thanks being given. “I believe our guest is conscious,” he said instead.

Well. Since the goose was up, Tony opened his eyes.

And stared.

There were two people standing before him. One of them looked disturbingly like a teenaged version of Reindeer Games and that was an _absolute horror_ to contemplate because daddy issues _plus_ teenage angst? Just. _No._ That person was probably British Voice. The second person, on the other hand…

Looked exactly like a teenaged version of him.

“What the hell?”

Young-him (not him, _not_ him, it couldn’t be, right?) grinned and waved. “Hey, Old-me! Good to see Loki didn’t scramble your brains when he whisked your soul over from your universe to ours! How’re you feeling?”

What.

**Author's Note:**

> So. Not quite as angsty as you thought it would be? Trust me, I didn't see it coming myself either. I mean, my first CW-related fic was basically angst and more angst on top of another pile of angst, with an angsty cherry on the top. 
> 
> This fic started life as a reverse!courthouse scene from the comics' _Civil War_ (if that wasn't obvious enough haha), because I wanted to read something like it and there wasn't much of that going around. Even after I got the idea to end it differently, I was still very tempted to end the fic without the Avengers Academy kids saving the day. At the very most, I would've written a Steve POV about seeing Tony's assassination and have it be full of guilt and glorious angst. I do so love my angst, after all.
> 
> That is not to say that I _won't_ write that Steve POV fic now. But, as you can probably guess, this fic is pretty much a lead-in to a crossover with AvAc, a game which I adore, especially with how well they handled their Civil War (I also still very much love the allusions to their version of CW in later game cutscenes, even if I wish they'd give me back the AvAc!Steve who was such a darling to AvAc!Tony before their CW happened). I cannot promise when the continuation would appear, but it'll happen. This is also why this fic is tagged "Pre-Slash". :D


End file.
